These days, I mostly start bonsai seedlings and cuttings because I have better control over trunk height and girth. I don't normally go out and buy mature specimens. BUT! Come on! It's that time of the year when nurseries and garden centers are placing tree and shubbery on clearance! For me, early summer is like the after holiday season sale to stock-up on pre-bonsai trees and shrubs at 50%-90% discount, depending on how dead looking the bush looks.The real holiday season after sale time I use to purchase foil gift wrap for origami and fancy wired brocade ribbons for ningyo obi material at 50%-90% discount. I love bargain shopping!

If you know how to handle drought stressed plants before they are actually dead, then indeed, start hitting-up all your local garden centers (in the states, Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart is decent). Of course you want to avoid completely dead plants unless you are hurting for deadwood grafting material. However, trees and shrubs that look dead on the top branches but somewhat green and only mild leaf burn on lower leaves are still salvageable. When a tree or shrub initially suffers from drought, it sacrifices the top new growth to conserve moisture in its lower region.

Even if you don't like what the tree looks like for pre-bonsai stock, for instance, ugly grafted Japanese maple, you can still use that rare, yet ugly grafted tree as a mother tree for seeds and cuttings.

Last week, for a few dollars, I snagged a sexy Chaeomeles speciosa 'Toyo Nishiki' that was fruiting! It had the delightful beginnings of an exposed root structure which I need to work on once I get the tree stabilized. Currently, I have the Toyo Nishiki recovering in a five gallon pot and wedged an medicine bottle inbetween the roots to help spread the exposed roots. I grabbed the nearest object of approximate size for the exposed roots which happened to be an empty Walgreens pharmacy bottle which I used to soak cayenne seeds in earlier.

I'm not done discount shopping yet. There are still some nurseries I want to hit up for clearance sales!

Will be starting several grow journals including the Toyo Nishiki, once I figure out how to transfer pictures from my new Samsung smart camera. My family finally took my 15 year old ancient cell phone away last month and replaced it with a Samsung Note III phone tablet so I can use it to take clearer remote pictures with my Samsung smart camera.

Meanwhile, show us some of your late spring/early summer pre-bonsai and bonsai discount acquisitions!

Warmest aloha,Geoline

P.S. @Jim LewisI think I'm getting too old. I haven't figured out how to use bluetooth or wifi to move pictures from this new fangled camera to my PC on my own. My son has to transfer the micro HD contents to my USB thumb drive for the time being.

Geoline wrote:P.S. @Jim LewisI think I'm getting too old. I haven't figured out how to use bluetooth or wifi to move pictures from this new fangled camera to my PC on my own. My son has to transfer the micro HD contents to my USB thumb drive for the time being.

Me too. To me "wifi" is just damned poor spelling for the girl I married 54 years ago* this week (and if she ever hears me calling her "wifey" she'll wring my neck and I'd deserve it!) We're off for a Japanese meal, topped off with a large Kirin Ichiban (or two), in Hendersonville when "The Day" arrives.

* Of course, we met 61 years ago next month aboard the SS President Cleveland enroute to Japan (Jackie) then Hong Kong (me).

_________________Jim Lewis - lewisjk@windstream.net - Western NC - People, when Columbus discovered this country, it was plumb full of nuts and berries. And I'm right here to tell you the berries are just about all gone. Uncle Dave Macon, old-time country musician

Geoline wrote:P.S. @Jim LewisI think I'm getting too old. I haven't figured out how to use bluetooth or wifi to move pictures from this new fangled camera to my PC on my own. My son has to transfer the micro HD contents to my USB thumb drive for the time being.

Me too. To me "wifi" is just damned poor spelling for the girl I married 54 years ago* this week (and if she ever hears me calling her "wifey" she'll wring my neck and I'd deserve it!) We're off for a Japanese meal, topped off with a large Kirin Ichiban (or two), in Hendersonville when "The Day" arrives.

* Of course, we met 61 years ago next month aboard the SS President Cleveland enroute to Japan (Jackie) then Hong Kong (me).

Wow, Jim, I didn't know you were a Navy veteran like my husband. Congratulations! You've been married as long as I've been alive.

I still haven't found a decent Chinese or Japanese restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee that's worthy of my grandmother's Chinese/Japanese cooking. So I still make my own stirfrys and sushi, although my son can fix good quality sticky rice without the use of an electric rice pot. Old method which involves measuring rice and water level by finger joint. I also cringe when I see Chef Ramsey coach people to use olive oil in their Chinese stir fry. Olive oil has a distinct flavor that ruins the taste of Asian food. It was like that moment in Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club when the Caucasian husband of the daughter poured soil sauce over her mom's prized dish. Everyone in my family who saw this cringed.

(I hope the YouTube video is okay to share as it falls under YouTube guidelines for fair use of material Chef Ramsey created for YouTube.)

Geoline wrote:Wow, Jim, I didn't know you were a Navy veteran like my husband. Congratulations! You've been married as long as I've been alive.

Nope. I'm an Embassy Brat. I was 15 when we moved to HK (Jackie was 14). Graduated from High School in Tokyo

_________________Jim Lewis - lewisjk@windstream.net - Western NC - People, when Columbus discovered this country, it was plumb full of nuts and berries. And I'm right here to tell you the berries are just about all gone. Uncle Dave Macon, old-time country musician

I look in the clearance section of a local garden center chain. I usually see a price range from 2 to 10 dollars. Last year i found three deals, one of which survived the winter. I haven't seen anything out in the clearance area yet this year. I suspect at this time last year they were off-loading stock from the previous year, and this year there is less because it didn't overwinter - this is just a guess.

PSi also want to visit the local field where we buy our Christmas trees. I want to look for something that got run over with the tractor, or broken in the ice storm, or whatever. If it won;t make a good cone-shaped Christmas tree, he may sell it cheep.

Dave Leppo wrote:. . .I suspect at this time last year they were off-loading stock from the previous year, and this year there is less because it didn't overwinter - this is just a guess.

If winter comes early and lasts an extended period, you can expect bargains on otherwise pricey Satsuki Azaleas and other rhododendrons at many nurseries.

This is the part of bonsai horticulture where you truly pay attention to haiku masters who talk about the seasons or Punxsutawney Phil, the great prognosticator of winter into spring in the U.S. and Canada.

Much of ancient Chinese poetry and Japanese haiku revolve around how clues from nature interact with love, life, work, strife, harvest. An early, lengthy, harsh winter means that nurseries who have transplanted their rhododendron into larger pots to encourage a bigger bush to sell at a heftier price will not get that massive bush that landscapers prize. Hence the nursery will off-load old rhododendron stock at clearance prices because those azaleas aren't as bushy and the product labels look old.

_________________Jim Lewis - lewisjk@windstream.net - Western NC - People, when Columbus discovered this country, it was plumb full of nuts and berries. And I'm right here to tell you the berries are just about all gone. Uncle Dave Macon, old-time country musician

Those were fun times. Tossing haiku at Sandy V. and Hud. I think sometimes even Chris C and Andy W lobbied a few haiku back. Sandy V publishes poetry with her macro nature photography, teaches art occasionally, makes period costumes, and still grows bonsai but doesn't engage in bonsai organizations anymore. I lost touch with Hud. I think he has taken up woodworking as a hobby.

I'm easing my way back into horticulture and Chinese, Japanese and Polynesian arts and crafts. I got hit kind of hard with an autoimmune disorder and lost the ability to control my limbs for awhile. I'm trying to develop more hand strength so I can make a musha ningyo for my younger cousin in Hawaii. She is trying to preserve Japanese culture for the Japanese American children in Hawaii as a Japanese American. Healthy cultural roots provide good a foundation for young Japanese American sapplings. The musha ningyo is traditionally a male heirloom, but this musha ningyo will be of Tomoe Gozen, a legendary female samurai. Musha ningyo accoutrements require much miniature wire work.

Meanwhile, back to pre-bonsai bargains . . .

Just purchased Shishigashira, Mikawa Yatsubusa, and Katsura acer seeds on eBay. I'll be crossing my fingers that these are viable. The Shishigashira (lion mane) kind of reminds me of my brave Lhasa Apso. The Lhaso Apso is the little guardian temple lion mane dog of ancient Tibet. I want to grow a couple of lion's mane specimen trees to flank the entrance of my house. I want to start them from seed so I can select the best puppies to train.